New York/JFK (JFK)
British Airways Concorde departing on 31L. View from the Blue Garage. Just like the city it serves, JFK Int’l Airport is a dirty, filthy, run-down bucket of skuzz. Broken and/or boarded windows, weeds growing through the pavement, security guards with no teeth, construction going on everywhere, dirt and grime all over the place...if airports were cars, then JFK would be a beat-up old Pinto. But if you’re looking for a wide variety of airlines and a large volume of heavies, there may be no better airport than JFK. You simply don’t see many of the airlines that come into JFK anywhere else in the U.S. JFK has two 13/31 runways which straddle the airport and two 4/22 runways which sit side-by-side on the east end of the field. Action seems to pick up more and more as the day goes on...in the morning JFK is rather slow; by evening and into the night, it is hard to find a busier airport. Planes start arriving in heavy numbers between 1:30-4:00 P.M. and departing between 5:00-7:00 P.M. A sizable portion of the traffic, if not a majority of it, is made up of international airlines. American and Delta also have strong presences at JFK.
KLM 747 touching down on 31R. View from the Blue Garage.INDOORS:
-Terminal 3, the Delta terminal. Gives a good view from the 4/22 runways and arrivals on 31L. Relatively close to runways...wish I could remember specific gate numbers.
-Terminal 5, the TWA terminal. Nice view from here of arrivals on 22 L/R as well as 13L departures (post-rotation).
Air France 747 arriving on 22L. View from the Blue Garage.OUTDOORS:
-Terminal 4 parking garage (the "Blue" Garage). Top floor gives you a good panoramic view of the entire airport. Watch out, though...you won’t be there long before security comes along and kicks you out.
-Terminal 3 parking garage. There is actually a parking lot on the top of Terminal 3, the aforementioned Delta terminal. Gives a good view of the action on 4/22 and of airplanes parked in a nearby penalty box, but the airport has constructed a tall blue fence around the perimeter of the lot to discourage spotters from hanging out there.
-On the way out of the airport on the JFK expressway, there is a clearing near the threshold on runway 13L. There is an overpass where the JFK expressway goes over the road leading to Rockaway Blvd (I hope I have my streets right). From the side of the road on this overpass you get a nice, close-up view of arrivals on that runway. But this area sits on a highly traveled, busy road where everyone and their mother will drive by and see you, including police and security figures.
TWA 757 on short final. View from the threshold of 13L.PRE-9/11 SECURITY REPORT:
-The barbed wire all over this page is not there by coincidence; security at JFK is ridiculously tight, almost to the point of being paranoid. You won’t be able to stay in one place for long before security tells you to move along. There are plenty of horror stories about JFK...I personally was kicked out of the "Blue Garage" on one trip there even though I had written permission from the Port Authority to be there. Another spotter once reported to me that security kicked him out of the customs' parking lot on the northeast side of the airport, but not before conducting an unconsented and illegal search of his car. JFK really seems to have it in for spotters. I highly recommend contacting the Port Authority before any planned spotting trip (although as my example points out, sometimes even that doesn't do much good). You can bet that security is even more strict after the terrorist attacks.
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